The Sun & the Moon & the Rolling Stones

Rich Cohen enters the Stones epic as a young journalist on the road with the band and quickly falls under their sway - privy to the jokes, the camaraderie, the bitchiness, the hard living. Inspired by a lifelong appreciation of the music that borders on obsession, Cohen's chronicle of the band is informed by the rigorous views of a kid who grew up on the music and for whom the Stones will always be the greatest rock 'n' roll band of all time.

Testimony

On the 40th anniversary of The Band's legendary The Last Waltz concert, Robbie Robertson finally tells his own spellbinding story of the band that changed music history, his extraordinary personal journey, and his creative friendships with some of the greatest artists of the last half century.

Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day

In this breathtaking cultural history filled with exclusive, never-before-revealed details, celebrated rock journalist Joel Selvin tells the definitive story of the Rolling Stones' infamous Altamont concert in San Francisco, the disastrous historic event that marked the end of the idealistic 1960s.

Life

Now at last Keith Richards pauses to tell his story in the most anticipated autobiography in decades. And what a story! Listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records in a coldwater flat with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones, building a sound and a band out of music they loved. Finding fame and success as a bad-boy band, only to find themselves challenged by authorities everywhere....

Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits With the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces…

Born just outside London in 1942, Glyn Johns was 16 years old at the dawn of rock and roll. His big break as a producer came on the Steve Miller Band's debut album, Children of the Future. He went on to engineer or produce iconic albums for the best in the business, including Abbey Road with the Beatles. Even more impressive, Johns was perhaps the only person on a given day in the studio who was entirely sober, and so he is one of the most reliable and clear-eyed insiders to tell these stories today.

The music that Phillips shaped in his tiny Memphis studio, with artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Ike Turner, Howlin' Wolf, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash, introduced a sound that had never been heard before. He brought forth a singular mix of black and white voices passionately proclaiming the vitality of the American vernacular tradition while at the same time declaring, once and for all, a new, integrated musical day.

When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin

They were the last great band of the '60s and the first great band of the '70s. They rose, somewhat unpromisingly, from the ashes of the Yardbirds to become one of the biggest-selling rock bands of all time - and eventually paid the price for it, with disaster, drug addiction, and death.

Petty: The Biography

No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker and writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write. Born in Gainesville, Florida, with more than a little hillbilly in his blood, Tom Petty was a Southern shit kicker, a kid without a whole lot of promise. Rock and roll made it otherwise.

Never a Dull Moment: 1971 - the Year That Rock Exploded

On New Year's Eve, 1970, Paul McCartney told his lawyers to issue the writ at the High Court in London, effectively ending The Beatles. You might say this was the last day of the pop era. The following day, which was a Friday, was 1971. You might say this was the first day of the rock era. And within the remaining 364 days of this monumental year, the world would hear Don McLean's "American Pie", The Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar", The Who's "Baba O'Riley", Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", and more.

Paul McCartney: The Life

Since the age of 21, Paul McCartney has lived one of the ultimate rock 'n' roll lives, played out on the most public of stages. Now Paul's story is told by rock music's foremost biographer, with McCartney's consent and access to family members and close friends who have never spoken on the record before.

I Am Brian Wilson

As a cofounding member of the Beach Boys in the 1960s, Wilson created some of the most groundbreaking and timeless popular music ever recorded. With intricate harmonies, symphonic structures, and wide-eyed lyrics that explored life's most transcendent joys and deepest sorrows, songs like "In My Room", "God Only Knows", and "Good Vibrations" forever expanded the possibilities of pop songwriting.

Mick Jagger

Philip Norman has long towered above other rock biographers with his definitive studies of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Buddy Holly, and John Lennon - legends whom the world thought it knew, but who came to life as never before through the meticulousness of Norman's research, the sweep of his cultural knowledge, and the brilliance of his writing. Now Norman turns to a rock icon who is the most notorious yet enigmatic of them all.

Lucky Bastard: My Life, My Dad, and the Things I'm Not Allowed to Say on TV

Sports fans see Joe Buck everywhere: broadcasting one of the biggest games in the NFL every week, calling the World Series every year, announcing the Super Bowl every three years. They know his father, Jack Buck, is a broadcasting legend and that he was beloved in his adopted hometown of St. Louis. Yet they have no idea who Joe really is. Or how he got here. In Lucky Bastard, Joe takes the listener into the broadcast booth and into his childhood home. Hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking, this is a book that any sports fan will love.

brianrainstorm says:"I thought you were the guy in Midnight Cowboy..."

Fortunate Son: My Life, My Music

Creedence Clearwater Revival is one of the most important and beloved bands in the history of rock, and John Fogerty wrote, sang, and produced their instantly recognizable classics: "Proud Mary", "Bad Moon Rising", "Born on the Bayou", and more. Now he reveals how he brought CCR to number one in the world, eclipsing even the Beatles in 1969. By the next year, though, Creedence was falling apart; their amazing, enduring success exploded and faded in just a few short years.

Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones

Brian Jones is a forensic, thrilling account of Jones' life, which for the first time details his pioneering achievements and messy unraveling. With more than 120 new interviews, Trynka offers countless new revelations and sets straight the tall tales that have long marred Jones' legacy. His story is a gripping battle between creativity and ambition, between self-sabotage and betrayal. It's all here: the girlfriends, the drugs, and some of the greatest music of all time.

Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon

To have been alive during the last 60 years is to have lived with the music of Paul Simon. The boy from Queens scored his first hit record in 1957, just months after Elvis Presley ignited the rock era. As the songwriting half of Simon & Garfunkel, his work helped define the youth movement of the '60s. On his own in the '70s, Simon made radio-dominating hits. He kicked off the '80s by reuniting with Garfunkel to perform for half a million New Yorkers in Central Park. Five years later Simon's album Graceland sold millions. And it doesn't stop there.

Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years

Tune In is the first volume of All These Years - a highly-anticipated, groundbreaking biographical trilogy by the world's leading Beatles historian. Mark Lewisohn uses his unprecedented archival access and hundreds of new interviews to construct the full story of the lives and work of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink

This memoir, written entirely by Elvis Costello himself, offers his unique view of his unlikely and sometimes comical rise to international success, with diversions through the previously undocumented emotional foundations of some of his best known songs and the hits of tomorrow. The book contains many stories and observations about his renowned cowriters and coconspirators, though Costello also pauses along the way for considerations on the less appealing side of infamy.

Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life

From Graham Nash - the legendary musician and founding member of the iconic bands Crosby, Stills & Nash and The Hollies - comes a candid and riveting autobiography that belongs on the reading list of every classic rock fan.

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley is the first biography to go past that myth and present an Elvis beyond the legend. Based on hundreds of interviews and nearly a decade of research, it traces the evolution not just of the man but of the music and of the culture he left utterly transformed, creating a completely fresh portrait of Elvis and his world. This volume tracks the first 24 years of Elvis' life, covering his childhood, the stunning first recordings at Sun Records, and the early RCA hits.

The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs

Unlike all previous versions of rock 'n' roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects 10 songs recorded between 1956 and 2008 and then proceeds to dramatize how each embodies rock 'n' roll as a thing in itself in the story it tells, inhabits, and acts out - a new language, something new under the sun.

The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. (33 1/3 Series)

Tracing the creation of Exile on Main St. from the original songwriting done while touring America through the final editing in Los Angeles, Bill Janovitz explains how an album recorded by a British band in a villa on the French Riviera is pure American rock & roll. Looking at each song individually, Janovitz unveils the innovative recording techniques, personal struggles, and rock and roll mythmaking that culminated in this pivotal album.

Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal

After years of gigging everywhere from suburban backyards to dive bars, Van Halen - led by frontman extraordinaire David Lee Roth and guitar virtuoso Edward Van Halen - had the songs, the swagger, and the talent to turn the rock world on its ear. The quartet's classic 1978 debut, Van Halen, sold more than a million copies within months of release and rocketed the band to the stratosphere of rock success.

Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley

This concluding volume recounts the second half of Elvis' life in rich and previously unimagined detail, and confirms Guralnick's status as one of the great biographers of our time. Beginning with Presley's army service in Germany in 1958 and ending with his death in Memphis in 1977, Careless Love chronicles the unraveling of the dream that once shone so brightly, homing in on the complex playing-out of Elvis' relationship with his Machiavellian manager, Colonel Tom Parker.

Publisher's Summary

Stanley Booth, a member of the Rolling Stones’ inner circle, met the band just a few months before Brian Jones drowned in a swimming pool in 1968. He lived with them throughout their 1969 American tour, staying up all night with them listening to blues, talking about music, ingesting drugs, and consorting with groupies. His thrilling account culminates with their final concert at Altamont Speedway: a nightmare of beating, stabbing, and killing that would signal the end of a generation’s dreams of peace and freedom.

In Booth’s new afterword, he finally explains why it took him 15 years to write the book, relating an astonishing story of drugs, jails, and disasters that has been called - by Harold Brodkey and Robert Stone, among others - the best book ever written about the sixties.

What the Critics Say

"Stanley Booth is one hell of a writer. The evidence is clear once you pick up his book on the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band, The True Adventures of The Rolling Stones. Many writers and Stones fans feel that Booth's tale is not only the definitive book on the Stones, but one of the definitive rock books, period." (Steven Ward, Rockcritics.com)

"If you buy one book on the Rolling Stones, you'd be a fool if this wasn't it." (Fat City)

What made the experience of listening to The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones the most enjoyable?

The author painted wonderful pictures of the times!

What did you like best about this story?

I didn't want it to end! I especially appreciated the way the author really made Brian Jones an active part of the book, which is so important.

What aspect of Adrian Mulraney’s performance would you have changed?

This particular narrator was not a good choice for the material. An Englishman reading a book written from the perspective of a man from Waycross, GA isn't a good fit, unless he's imitating Mick Jagger's cockney accent. Unfortunate choice for such a cool book with great moments and characters that required a little more southern flavor at times.

This is the worst Audio Book I have bought. The intonation used by the reader often made no sense of the text an really spoiled the listening experience. I suspect the story is more enjoyable than my experience of it.

The story telling and narration are quite poor and it makes it hard to enjoy. Seemed to be full of alot of "you had to be there" moments. Wouldnt recommend. I haven't had much luck with Rolling Stones books! Mick's "Life" was crap as well :(

Narrators voice sounded dull to begin with but is, in retrospect, very well pitched. Calm and detached through this intimate portrait of the Stones. Keith Richards description in the opening chapters was enough to get me hooked and more memorable writing throughout - "Micks hands waving like undersea flowers". Didn't want it to end.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

david

5/14/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Beyond brilliant"

This has got to be one of the greatest rock band accounts ever written. The atmospheric descriptions of the stones live gigs are beyond compare....

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

karen

Liversedge, United Kingdom

1/19/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"its so long winded you get tired of listening"

Would you try another book written by Stanley Booth or narrated by Adrian Mulraney?

not by stanley booth

Would you ever listen to anything by Stanley Booth again?

probably not

How could the performance have been better?

more entertaining and faster moving

What character would you cut from The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones?

not sure, got bored of the book

Any additional comments?

no

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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